Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

It is a special day when you get the quinella! Ultimately, what has happened is that the member for Hunter has obviously gone into the tactics meeting and he has talked to the Leader of the Opposition, saying, 'Please give me a question—please, please.' He has run it past the Manager of Opposition Business: 'I need a question. It's been a year. Give me a question. Come on—help me out.' After he came up with an absolute Barry Crocker for his first one, he comes back to the dispatch box for his next one. It's great! It's great when they are bowling you mullygrubbers! He is talking about an event that is—I do not know—perhaps a year and a half ago which is well documented. Might I say that Dr Paul Grimes himself called the Senate inquiry, which he went to himself. He presented himself before that same Senate inquiry, where all the judicious approach of the inquisitive nature of the Senate were put at their disposal to ask the hard questions so as to get to the bottom of this dastardly event. And what did they come up with? Nothing—absolutely nothing.

About a year and a half later—because that is how long it takes him to get a question—up he bowls, the member for Hunter, to ask yet another absolute cracker of a question to try to bring the government down single-handedly! Dr Grimes would probably say it is not proper that you should come up with a policy that, basically, discriminates against Australian workers, especially when the leader of your party is a former AWU union rep, a person who was supposed to be looking after Australian workers, looking after farmers and looking after people on the land. But what have Labor come up with? They have come up with a policy that encourages people to employ people from overseas above Australian workers. And you just sit there smiling. Is that how you smiled when you did that to Cleanevent? Is that how you smiled with Chiquita Mushrooms? Is that the smirk you had on your face when you were letting down those workers? Now you have let down every member of the AWU who works on a farm because you—

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